History of Desalination - Rockland Water Coalition

Introduction
On December 14, 2006, the New York Public Service Commission granted United Water
New York permission to raise its rates for three years in a row, starting in 2007. As part
of this agreement, United Water committed to coming up with a long term water supply
project for Rockland County. A month later, United Water submitted a plan to build a
desalination plant on the Hudson River, with the stated intent of using that plant to fulfill
its commitment to the state.
Today, concerned citizens of Rockland County have come together to urge policymakers
to oppose the desalination plant. While residents of Rockland County are paying higher
bills, United Water’s plan could damage the environment and public health, does not
solve Rockland County’s long term water needs, and fails to evaluate alternatives that
could.
The Haverstraw Water Supply Project
United Water’s proposed Haverstraw Water Supply Project would draw water from the
Hudson River and distribute it throughout Rockland County. Like other water supply
projects, it would involve a new water intake, intake pumping station, treatment facility,
and new distribution mains. Unlike traditional facilities, however, the plant must be able
to remove salts, PCBs, strontium, radionuclides and other industrial chemicals from the
water before distributing it to its customers. This means that the facility will include a
step for reverse osmosis desalination—the only treatment on the market today that can
reduce those chemicals in water enough to meet safe drinking water standards.
What is desalination?
Unfortunately, reverse osmosis technology comes along with many risks to the public.
The concept of desalination is simple in theory, but in practice involves a lot of money,
energy, pollution, and other risks.
Simply put, desalination removes salt and other minerals from water. There are actually
multiple methods to accomplish this. In ancient times, Aristotle observed that you could
separate salt and water by heating the water and collecting the steam, which was salt free
after it cooled. Centuries later, engineers figured out that the same process works on a
large scale, although it takes so much energy, money and pollution that only money rich
and water poor nations, such as Saudi Arabia, or islands without viable freshwater
supplies, such as Aruba, saw it as a practical water supply.
In the past 50 years, the United States developed a new technology to remove salt from
water called reverse osmosis. Reverse osmosis pumps water over membranes with tiny
holes in them that block the passage of salts and other chemicals. While less expensive
and energy intensive than distillation, it is still the most expensive and energy intensive
water production in the U.S. And, when used on a large scale, the technology comes with
a range of social and environmental problems.

One of the biggest costs associated with the technology is the amount of energy it
requires, which incurs both financial costs and contributes to global warming. And global
warming is not the only environmental concern. On its way into a plant, the water often
brings with it fish and other organisms that die in the machinery. Then, only a portion of
the ocean water that enters the plant actually reaches the consumer. The remaining water
ends up as a highly concentrated solution that contains both the salt from the source water
and an array of chemicals from the industrial process. One of the biggest challenges
associated with the technology is disposing of this waste in a way that does not further
contaminate our water systems—some plants release it back into the ocean, toxins and
all. Meanwhile, since the source water is often seawater, brackish water or contaminated
water, the portion of the water that reaches the customer can contain unregulated
chemicals not present in normal drinking water, which may endanger public health.
To complicate matters, desalination plants, like any construction projects, often don’t live
up to the promises made by contractors. Many larger plants currently built for municipal
drinking water purposes do not operate at their stated capacity, if they operate at all. In
fact, the first large-scale ocean desalination plant for municipal use in the United States,
built in Tampa Bay, was fraught with failures and now produces less water than
originally promised, at a higher cost.
Desalination in Rockland County
United Water’s Haverstraw Water Supply Project will not likely be immune to the risks
seen in desalination projects around the country. Already, the plant is sure to be
expensive, and likely to cause further rate increases. It will also require a lot of energy.
Energy prices fluctuate, so this might mean even more rate increases later on, and
regardless will keep operating costs up, and contribute to global warming. The project
does plan to mitigate the intake of fish and other aquatic life by building its intake under
the surface of the river, although the construction may still have negative impacts on the
region’s fisheries. Meanwhile, the toxic chemicals removed from the water must be
disposed of. United Water plans to send its waste to the Joint Regional Sewage Treatment
Plant (2-18), where it may overload the already taxed system.
As for whether Hudson River water is safe to drink, most technical experts agree that the
technology can reduce the chemicals to acceptable levels, but many citizens have
concerns that trace amounts in drinking water will pose human health risks. And average
citizens aren’t the only folks concerned about the project. In order to approve the plant,
the state Department of Environmental Conservation says it would need to see additional
studies, including but not limited to more detailed alternatives, zoning, impact mitigation
studies, studies on the landfill site and other technical issues.
Is it worth it?
Will the plant be worth all these costs to the public? United Water promised the state of
New York that in order to provide a long term water supply for Rockland County, it

would produce an additional 1.5mgd average daily supply and 7.1mgd peak supply by the
end of 2015. The company says it can do that by building a desalination plant in stages—
at first it will provide smaller amounts of water but will reach a capacity of 7.5mgd by the
time demand reaches that much, sometime after 2021.
This plan sounds simple enough, but it does not fully address Rockland County’s water
needs. In fact, a closer look at Rockland County’s water history reveals that even if the
desalination plant does supply that much water, it will not likely produce a viable long
term water supply for Rockland County.
To understand why a desalination plant is not a long term answer for Rockland County,
one must look at the assumptions that United Water made to come to its conclusion. It
turns out that the estimate of how much water the county needs is not based on how much
water current residents use, but rather on how much water the county will use if new
developments come to town. The company predicts that increased development will
create 15,540 new connections in the water system between 2008 and 2025. (1-12)
Tapping into the Hudson River to quench the thirst of these new developments will not
create a sustainable supply of water because this new water supply will encourage further
development—which will likely create an even larger demand for more water. This is a
problem because Rockland County has finite water resources that cannot sustain endless
development. Already, in 2002, the state determined that water resources were strained
and required that developers go through the department of health first before making
requests to United Water. (need cite)
And development isn’t just straining water resources because it increases demand. It also
interferes with the natural processes that ensure the safety of the water system in the long
term. When rainwater hits paved surfaces, it cannot trickle through the ground to
replenish the aquifers that feed the wells of the water system. Instead, it is diverted
through drains into the Hudson River.
The desalination plan does not take into account the importance of understanding and
protecting existing water supplies before creating new developments. Before United
Water proposed its plant, the county was actually taking steps to do exactly that, by
partnering with the United States Geological Survey to assess exactly how much water
exists naturally in Rockland County’s aquifers. Yet Untied Water plans to move forward
with a new water project that encourages development without first collecting this data to
understand the potential impacts of such an action.
Fails to evaluate alternatives
While United Water’s plan does not question the wisdom of new development, it also
does not include an analysis of conservation measures that could be taken instead of
building a new plant. Conservation measures are almost always cheaper, and more
environmentally friendly, than desalination. However, the company says that it cannot
consider conservation in its planning because it is a private company, not a public

agency, which means it cannot enforce conservation measures. While this is technically
true, it fails to mention that as a private company, United Water actually has incentive to
pursue this expensive project for reasons that have nothing to do with providing a safe
long term water supply for Rockland County.
Since United Water is a corporation, it must produce profits to distribute to its
shareholders—who are not necessarily citizens of Rockland County. While the citizens of
Rockland County are paying higher water rates, the company is collecting more money,
which boosts its revenues. Encouraging conservation actually means less profit for the
company.
What’s more, the company has no financial incentive to conserve water itself as an
alternative to constructing a new project. The company could actually save 2 mgd a day
just by fixing leaks in its infrastructure. This fix would be practical, future-minded, and
environmentally friendly—and, it would produce almost as much as the desalination
plant in its initial years of operation. However, it won’t look as good on the company’s
financial report. Due to the rules of accounting, the investment that the company would
make in its own infrastructure would be recorded as a maintenance cost, while the
desalination plant, which produces new water, would be recorded as an investment. So,
while fixing the leaks might be better for United Water’s customers in Rockland County,
it won’t appear as attractive to the company’s shareholders.
Rockland county is not alone.
This story is not unique to Rockland County. Many communities around the country,
fearing water shortages, are considering desalination proposals without fully assessing
the costs, consequences or alternatives. And, while some public utilities are considering
desalination as well, projects are often pushed hardest by corporations who stand to profit
from the project.
As long ago as 1991, Santa Barbara and the Montecito and Goleta Water Districts
constructed a $34 million plant during a drought. However, the drought ended before it
came online, and the city found that conservation measures implemented during the
drought were successful in reducing demand, and officials ultimately shut down the plant i
In the 1990s, officials fearing water shortages in Tampa Bay, Florida, commissioned the
first and only large-scale seawater desalination plant to come online for drinking water
use in this country. Bankruptcies and contract transfers, technical failures, and lawsuits
brought the plant online years behind schedule and millions of dollars more than planned.
Meanwhile, Tampa Bay Water built a new reservoir and treatment plant, and
implemented conservation programs, which decreased groundwater pumping from 192
million to 121 million gallons per day, despite increased population. ii This meant savings
of 71 million gallons a day—almost three times as much as the 25 million gallons a day
that the desalination plant was supposed to produce.

Today, the Marin Municipal Water District in California, is looking at building a
seawater desalination plant as well. Yet conservation projects in Marin could produce the
water Marin needs at a fraction of the price of desalination. In fact, the cost of simply
reducing leaks in existing pipes, reducing landscape irrigation waste and increasing the
efficiency of household appliances comes out to roughly a third of the cost of producing
that same amount of water with a desalination plant.
Most public agencies are turned off by the high costs of desalination projects. Seabrook,
New Hampshire considered investing a plant until they realized they would have to raise
rates from $2.80 a gallon to more than $8.00. The Brownsville Public Utilities Board, in
Texas, considered a seawater desalination plant, but abandoned the project because it was
too expensive.
Private companies, however, are less phased by the high costs to consumers—in fact,
they can see desalination as an opportunity to make a buck. Poseidon Resources, Inc.
wants to build a huge desalination plant in Carlsbad, California and sell the water to the
San Diego Water Authority. Similarly, Inima USA, a division of Spain-based OHL, is
building a plant in Brockton Massachusetts to treat Taunton River water. Regardless of
whether the town receives any water, Brockton will pay a fixed fee of $3.2 million per
year for the first three years, which will increase annually thereafter. On top of that, the
town will pay a fee for the actual water, depending on how much it receives. iii
Conclusion
Many proposed desalination plants around the country today raise rates for the consumer,
pose additional risks, and fail to encourage long term sustainable measures such as better
land use planning and conservation. United Water’s proposed desalination plant is no
different. It is not a long term solution for Rockland County, and may cause more
problems than it solves. To truly address Rockland County’s water supply, citizens and
policymakers must take a comprehensive approach to water management that includes
conservation and land use planning, rather than allowing corporate interests to drive
water policy.
Take Action!
Join the Rockland Coalition for Sustainable Development in opposing the United Water
Hudson River desalination project.
Contact
Rachael Richardson
(coalition members)
i Cooley, Heather, Gleick, Peter and Wolff, Gary. “Desalination, with a grain of salt.”
Pacific Institute, Oakland, California, June 2006. p. 28.
ii Barnet, Cynthia. “Salty Solution?” Florida Trend Magazine, May 1, 2007.

iii Pateakos, Jay and Elaine Allegrini. “After more than a decade of work, desalinated
water to begin flowing soon to Brockton.” The Enterprise (Brockton, MA), May 21,
2008.